Lieberman Urges Faster U.S. Training of Iraqis, to Hasten Withdrawal

By JENNIFER MEDINA

Published: September 26, 2006

In his first major speech on Iraq since his loss in the primary election, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman called on Monday for the number of United States troops embedded with Iraqi forces to be doubled or tripled, to speed up the training of the Iraqis and help hasten the withdrawal of the Americans.

In a 40-minute speech at a Veterans of Foreign Wars post here, Mr. Lieberman, who has been under attack for his support of the war, said that those troops could be added through redeployments, rather than by committing additional troops in the region.

At the same time, he called for increasing the overall size of the United States Army and Marine Corps, to better prepare for looming conflicts.

''We've got to do that to make sure we are building the numbers and types of units we need to fight and win the kinds of conflicts that we are likely to fight -- unconventional conflicts -- during this century,'' Mr. Lieberman said.

''This is not going fix the shortages we have now in Iraq, or reduce the strain on our forces,'' he said. ''It will begin over time to give us the greater capabilities we will need.''

Mr. Lieberman, a Democrat in his third term in the Senate, is running for re-election as an independent.

He said that he did not back an open-ended commitment -- as the victor in the Democratic primary on Aug. 8, Ned Lamont, has accused him of doing -- but that he also opposed setting a timeline for withdrawal.

And he attacked Mr. Lamont, portraying his rival's position on the withdrawal of American troops as ''giving up on Iraq.''

The Republican candidate, Alan Schlesinger, is far behind in the polls.

Mr. Lieberman's speech came on the heels of the latest National Intelligence Estimate, which concluded that as result of the war in Iraq, the overall terrorist threat to the United States has grown rather than diminished since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Like other Democrats around the country, Mr. Lamont seized on the report, saying it showed that the policies of the Bush administration had failed, and he said that Mr. Lieberman had continued to support them. ''Trying to make a military statement there is just making the situation worse,'' Mr. Lamont said on Monday during a campaign stop in New Haven, adding that Mr. Lieberman was still calling for ''more of the same.''

But Mr. Lieberman used the news of the intelligence report, which he said he had not read, to argue that a deadline for withdrawal would make the threat of terror ''exponentially worse'' and give a battle plan to factional militias, insurgents, terrorists, Syria and Iran.

Using his harshest language to date to attack Mr. Lamont, Mr. Lieberman called his opponent's stance ''a slippery, deadly slope every step of the way.''

''The Lamont plan for immediate withdrawal and an arbitrary deadline is doomed to fail and weaken our security,'' Mr. Lieberman added. ''It will leave our troops more vulnerable to attack while they remain, and will leave Iraq to become a failed state and a terrorist breeding ground when we're gone.''

Mr. Lamont has said he would support beginning the immediate withdrawal of ''frontline'' troops and setting a timeline for the withdrawal of all combat troops.

He has also said that he would have supported a Senate resolution in June that set a deadline of July 1, 2007, for troop withdrawal -- a measure supported by 13 Democrats as it went down to defeat.

Mr. Lieberman seized on that on Monday, saying that Mr. Lamont had ''fudged'' his position by using the terms timeline and deadline interchangeably.

Asked about the senator's comments, Mr. Lamont said that Mr. Lieberman was mischaracterizing his position because he would have supported both the amendment calling for a deadline and another unsuccessful resolution that called for a timeline without setting any dates. Mr. Lieberman was one of a handful of Democrats to oppose both resolutions.

But Mr. Lamont also said that he would still support a similar resolution establishing a deadline if it were to come up in the Senate again. He said that the main issue was not the number of months, but the establishment of some framework for withdrawal.

''I don't care whether it's 6 months, 12 months or 18 months, what is important is that you put in place a process,'' Mr. Lamont said, adding that he would consult with the Iraqi government and generals in the field to determine an exit strategy.

Mr. Lieberman said he believed ''success is possible'' because the majority of Iraqis ''want a better life.'' He added: ''I have total confidence in the ability of the American military to get the job done and win the war in Iraq.''

In his speech, Mr. Lieberman also said he would work to create a ''bipartisan working group'' with members of the House and Senate committees that monitor national security to meet with President Bush.

Mr. Lieberman said again that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld should resign. That, he said, would ''reinvigorate'' the military and allow a ''new dialogue'' with allies as well as the public.

Mr. Lieberman has both attacked and defended Mr. Rumsfeld in the past. In 2003, he said that if he were president he would seek Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation. But in 2004, he said Mr. Rumsfeld should not be forced to step down. Last month, he once again said Mr. Rumsfeld should resign.

During his speech on Monday, Mr. Lieberman again expressed his support for the war, saying that he had backed the use of force to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq because he believed Mr. Hussein ''was a grave threat to our country, his people, the region and the world.''

The Lamont campaign has tried to put Mr. Lieberman on the defensive by talking about his early support of the war, but on Monday, he made it clear that he would not take that bait.

''We don't have the luxury of playing 'what if' games with the past,'' Mr. Lieberman said, later quoting Winston Churchill: ''If the present tries to sit in judgment of the past, it will lose the future.''

Photos: Senator Joseph I. Lieberman and his wife, Hadassah, in East Hampton, Conn., yesterday before he gave a 40-minute speech at a Veterans of Foreign Wars post. (Photo by Andrew Henderson for The New York Times)(pg. B1); Ned Lamont, Connecticut's Democratic nominee for the Senate, in New Haven yesterday. He called for a plan to withdraw troops from Iraq. (Photo by Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times)(pg. B6)